Weekly Wrap 112: Security, hacks, unexpected encounters

I was in Sydney for most of my week Monday 23 to Sunday 29 July 2012, and despite some minor annoyances I’m reasonably pleased with the results.

I also started a new gig on a SEKRIT project. It looks like it’ll be quite fun, but I won’t be able to tell you about it for ages.

Podcasts

  • Patch Monday episode 147, “Mid-2012 malware: new flavours, same ice cream”. Has 2012 turned out to be “the year of cyberwar” accompanied by an explosion of Android malware? Hear from Alex Kirk, senior research analyst with the Sourcefire Vulnerability Research Team (VRT); David Hall, Symantec’s consumer spokesperson for Asia Pacific; and Bob Hansmann, senior product marketing manager at Websense.

Articles

If ever there was a week that illustrated my transition to grumpy-old-man writing, this is it.

Media Appearances

Corporate Largesse

None.

The Week Ahead

It looks like it’ll be a relatively easy week, but with most of it spent at Wentworth Falls — both because that’s the schedule and because it’s that end-of-the-month week where I really don’t have any money left.

[Photo: Diary of the Lost Crane being the view from level 12 of the Metro Sydney Central Hotel on a foggy Wednesday morning.]

Weekly Wrap 76: Slightly more settled, still chaotic

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets. There wasn’t quite as much chaos as last week, but still sufficient.

The Patch Monday podcast ended up being published on Tuesday, and I delayed my return to Wentworth Falls until then too. And I ended up coming down to Sydney very early on Friday, on the 0609 train, to cover the Apple vs Samsung case in the Federal Court for ZDNet Australia.

So despite sleeping most of Wednesday, I was still short of sleep by the weekend. Sigh.

Podcasts

  • Patch Monday episode 114, “Everyday malware is everyday criminals”. Alex Kirk, senior researcher with the Sourcefire Vulnerability Research Team (VRT), explains that Stuxnet is probably not your problem.

Articles

Media Appearances

Corporate Largesse

  • On Tuesday I had lunch at Quay Restaurant courtesy of NetSuite. We were also each given a copy of restaurateur Peter Gilmore’s book Quay: Food inspired by Nature.

Elsewhere

Most of my day-to-day observations are on my high-volume Twitter stream, and random photos and other observations turn up on my Posterous stream. The photos also appear on Flickr, where I eventually add geolocation data and tags.

[Photo: The Commonwealth Bank headquarters, Darling Harbour, photographed from Parkroyal Darling Harbour. Hey, if I’m going to stay in Sydney an extra day I might as well take a photo.]